The season opener for the Samsung Super League Nations Cup series in La Baule, France, on May 4-7, showed that the Europeans didn’t take well to last year’s Super League title going to the United States. The eight league teams were clearly not in the sleepy seaside town to enjoy its broad beaches.

Germany steamrolled into France with a team whose credits included multiple Olympic, World and European champions, as well as the recently crowned FEI World Cup champion from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Marcus Ehning.

The Americans, once again led by Chef d’Equipe George Morris, had their own team of laureates consisting of Margie Engle on Hidden Creek’s Wapino, Lauren Hough on Casadora, McLain Ward with Sapphire and Jeffery Welles on Armani.

After the conclusion of the first round of the Nations Cup, things looked grim for the Americans. They stood fourth, with 12 faults. The Germans had declared their winning intentions by picking up just 1 fault in Round 1, and France and Switzerland were tied for second on 9 faults each.

“Obviously, after the first round, we were a little bit disappointed,” said Ward. “But we were able to rally.”

Ward led the charge with a double-clear performance aboard Sapphire, and the French and Swiss teams couldn’t duplicate their first-round results. Even though the German lead was insurmountable, the U.S. team held on for second place.

And Ward completed a brilliant week of competition by claiming third in the Longines Grand Prix de la Ville de La Baule on Sapphire. He also won three other classes on Goldika and took home the leading rider title. Hough was awarded the Longines Award of Excellence, a style of riding honor.

Super League series points aren’t the only prize on the line for the U.S. riders. Morris and the selectors for the World Equestrian Games team are using the Super League shows to make their final selections.

“I think the team feels good,” said Ward. “Certainly, with these shows picking the teams for the WEG, there’s a little bit of an up-in-the-air feeling, but I think we’re all professionals and get along well and committed to doing our best.”

Rally, Rally
The Nations Cup course, set by Fr�d�rick Cottier, asked all the questions. And the challenges started early, with the first line, where a large triple bar rode in seven normal strides to a very short one-stride pair of verticals, making many riders elect to add a stride, getting their horses back and steady. Slowing down to jump the verticals clear proved costly for some riders, as the time allowed was tight and many incurred time faults.

Riders also had to contend with an option of narrow verticals set between Samsung cell phone standards and then seven strides to the 13’10”-wide water jump followed by eight or nine strides to the mauve-colored FEI square oxer heading directly toward the in-gate.

The U.S. team got off to a somewhat shaky start in Round 1. Welles, on Armani, rode first, collecting 8 faults. Hough and Casadora had just the top rail off the delicate La Baule vertical. Hidden Creek’s Wapino got hung up over two oxers and also had 8 faults for Engle. A veteran of more than 33 Nations Cup
classes, Ward rode Sapphire to a clear round, riding in his usual classically smooth but precise manner.

The German team’s first round was nearly flawless, marred only by two one-fault time penalties rung up by Ludger Beerbaum on L’Espoir and Otto Becker on Dobel’s Cento, one of which was their drop score. As a team, their horses didn’t drop a rail, and they looked like a well-oiled machine.

Asked how he felt after the first round for the U.S. team, accumulating 12 faults to Germany’s 1 fault, Morris set his jaw and answered with one of his level looks, “Disappointed.”

But the old line “it’s not over ’til it’s over” held true this day. Round 2 started off on a better note for the U.S. team as Welles jumped clear.

Casadora and Hough had two rails. But then Wapino jumped across the oxers easily the second time around and just touched the tape at the water. “In the first round, Jeffery’s horse jumped very well, but was a little bit unlucky, and he came back with a good clear,” said Ward. “And Margie’s horse was a little bit green in the first round but improved a lot in the second round.”

As the third rotation of riders came to a close, it appeared that it might come down to a jump-off between Germany and France if no other faults were incurred by the teams. Switzerland had dropped behind the United States with 17 faults; the United States was at 16, Great Britain had 15.

France’s Florian Angot and First de Launay and Michel Robert, having both jumped clear their second time around the course, sat tied with the German team whose first three riders in the second round each had a rail.

Then the tide changed. Of the top teams vying for podium positions, Great Britain’s John Whitaker and Exploit de Roulard had an uncharacteristic 16 faults, giving them a 28-fault final score and dropping them to sixth.

Ward rode Sapphire to coolly notch another clean round, and the team remained on 16 faults; they were at least in third place and awaited the final French rider, Herv� Godignon with Obelix.

His team member Chrisian Hermon with the black stallion Ephebe For Ever La Silla, had chalked up 17 faults, putting added pressure on Godignon to jump clean and keep them in the top two. But it was not to be. Obelix had three rails toward the end of the course, dashing French hopes and giving them a final score of 21, third place behind the Americans.

When asked about the second-placed finish for the United States, moving them up from a middle-of-the-pack fourth after Round 1, Ward said, “Americans are fighters. We fought back.”

Newly elected FEI president HRH Haya Bint al Hussein of Jordan made the presentation to the German team.

He Seems Unbeatable
Ward carried that fighting attitude into the Longines Grand Prix of La Baule two days later. And while he and Sapphire made a game effort, “we just needed to go a little bit faster to win,” said Ward. They finished third, with the winning steamroller Ehning cruising to yet another big victory in effortless style.

The class, run in a two-round format, brought back the top 18 riders from the first round while their times determined their order of go.

With nine first-round clears and six with just 1 time fault, the three fastest four-faulters had an opportunity for a second try, including Beezie Madden and Authentic who had touched the tape at the water in their initial effort.

Three American riders came home fault-free: Hough on Casadora, who went third and made it look easy, Ward on Sapphire and Engle on Hidden Creek’s Perin.

The course offered several areas of diffi-culty, and after the first fence, every jump came down at least once. The three-jump line of fences 9-10-11, a vertical to the wide La Baule water jump to the Samsung cell phone narrow option, incurred faults 30 times and two refusals at the water.

In the jump-off, Ward and Sapphire, the slowest initial clear, stopped the clock in 45.83 seconds and put the pressure on those remaining. Casadora, piloted by Hough, clear and fast until the last line, had one rail down in 46.51 seconds, good enough for 10th.

Beerbaum on L’Espoir 7 neatened his turns and left long to the last but kept it up to take the lead away from Ward in 45.48 seconds.

But the lead wouldn’t last long, as Ehning entered the ring on Noltes K�chengirl. A new ride for him, the bay mare looks to have all the talent he needs to keep winning. He inherited the ride from his younger brother, Johannes.

Despite sticking her feet down inside the La Baule oxer, making the crowd gasp, the long-strided mare by Lord Z kept all the jumps up and loped the last long line easily, stopping the clock more than 2 seconds faster than Beerbaum.

Engle and Hidden Creek’s Perin started off with all intentions of catching Ehning’s time. But difficulty in turning back smoothly on a vertical resulted in 4 faults, and Engle eased up on the accelerator for the last line, saving her horse for the next competition.

That left one rider to go–the fastest first round clear, French rider Laurent Goffinet and his small but mighty HN Flipper d’Elle. Unquestionably the smallest horse in the class, his explosive jumping style and the blazing gallop that Goffinet set had the hometown crowd alternatively cheering and shushing one another as he rounded the corner to the last line.

Because of his size, the leave-it-out option available to the two huge German horses was not possible for the game stallion. Goffinet jumped 12BC clear and nearly fit in the eight strides to the last, but with the momentum he had from the gallop, Flipper caught the front rail behind, dropping it as a huge sigh of disappointment ran through the stands before they cheered his valiant effort. The crowd listened to the strains of the German national anthem once again.